Beyond The Rhythms of The Mind to Being

Question 1

Mind functions through very subtle electric waves. That mechanism has to be understood. Now researchers say that mind functions in four states. The ordinary awake mind functions at eighteen to thirty cycles per second -- this is the "beta" state of mind. Right now you are in that state, while awake, doing your things.

Deeper than that is the "alpha" rhythm. Sometimes, when you are not active, but passive -- just relaxing on the beach, not doing anything, listening to music, or deep in prayer or in meditation -- then the activity of the mind is lowered: from eighteen to thirty cycles per second it becomes nearabout fourteen to eighteen cycles per second. You are aware, but not very alert. You are awake, but passive.

A certain kind of deep relaxation surrounds you.

All meditators fall into this second, alpha rhythm, when they meditate or pray.

Listening to music also that can happen. Just looking at trees, the expanse of greenery, it can happen. Not doing anything particularly, just sitting silently, it can happen. And once you know the knack of it, you can slow down the activity of the mind; then thoughts are not rushing. They move, they are there, but they move at a very slow pace, as if clouds floating in the sky -- in fact, not going somewhere, just floating. This second state, alpha, is very valuable.

Below the second there is a third state; the activity falls even lower. That state is called "theta": from eight to fourteen cycles per second. This is the state you pass through in the night when you are falling asleep, the drowsiness. When you take alcohol you pass through that drowsiness. Watch a drunkard walking: he is in the third state. He is walking not aware. Where he is going, he does not know.

What he is doing.... The body goes on functioning as a robot. The mind activity has slowed down so much that it is almost just on the verge of falling asleep.

In very deep meditation also this will happen -- you will fall from alpha to theta.

But it happens only in very deep states. Ordinary meditators don't touch it.

When you start touching this third state you will feel very blissful.

And all drunkards are trying to reach this blissfulness, but they miss; because the blissfulness is possible only if you go into this third state fully alert -- passive, but alert. A drunkard reaches into it, but he is unconscious; by the time he reaches he is unconscious. The state is there but he cannot enjoy it, he cannot delight in it, he cannot grow through it. The appeal all over the world of all sorts of intoxicants is because of the appeal of the theta. But you have chosen a wrong means if you are trying to reach it through chemicals. One should reach it just by slowing down the activity of the mind and remaining fully alert.

Then there is the fourth state; it is called "delta." The activity falls lower still: from zero to four cycles per second. The mind is almost nonfunctioning. There are moments when it touches the zero point, absolutely still. This is where you go in deep sleep, when even dreams have stopped; and this is what Hindus, Patanjali, Buddhists, have called samadhi. Patanjali, in fact, defines samadhi as deep sleep with awareness -- with only one condition: that awareness should be there.

In the West, much research has been done lately about these four states. They think it is impossible to be aware in the fourth, because they think it is contradictory -- to be aware and fast asleep. It is not. And one man, a very exceptional yogi, has proved it now scientifically. His name is Swami Ram. In 1970, in an American lab, in Menninger Institute, he told the researchers that he would go into the fourth state of mind willfully. They said, "That is impossible, because the fourth comes only when you are fast asleep and the will cannot function and you are not aware." But the swami said, "I will do it." The researchers were unwilling to believe, they were suspicious, but they tried.

The swami started meditating. By and by, within a few minutes, he was almost asleep. The EEG records which were tracing the waves of his mind showed that he was in the fourth state, the mind activity had almost ceased. Still, the researchers didn't believe because, he may have fallen asleep, that is not the point: the point is whether he is aware. Then the swami came back from his meditation, and he reported all the conversation that was going on around him -- better than those who were fully alert.

For the first time in a scientific lab, Krishna's famous sentence has been proved.

Krishna says in the Geeta, "Ya nisha sarva bhutayam tasyam jagrati samyami" -- "That which is a deep sleep to all, even there the yogi is awake." For the first time it has been proved as a scientific theory. It is possible to be fast asleep and aware, because sleep happens in the body, sleep happens in the mind, but the witnessing soul is never asleep. Once you have become unidentified with the body-mind mechanism, once you have become capable of watching what goes on in the body, in the mind, you cannot fall asleep: the body will go to sleep, you will remain alert. Somewhere deep within you a center will remain perfectly aware.

Now, the question: "Sometimes at your lectures I can't keep my eyes open...."

Don't try to keep them open. If you are falling in a deep rhythm allow it, because when you are listening to me, if you try to concentrate, you will remain in the first state, the beta, because the mind has to function. Don't be bothered. What I am saying is not so important as to realize that which is going to happen to you.

In fact whatsoever I am saying is nothing but to prepare you to fall deeper into your inner states of mind. So if you miss something don't bother -- you can listen to the tape later on. And even if you don't listen it doesn't matter.

If the eyes are closing, allow them. The only thing to remember is: be alert. Allow the eyes to close.... In fact become more alert, because the deeper you go in the mind, more alertness will be needed. You are diving deep in consciousness. You can fall asleep: then you have missed the lecture and you have missed the inner state also. Then it has been futile to be here. "Sometimes at your lectures I can't keep my eyes open...." No need. Close the eyes. Just remain alert inside -- become more alert.

"... and keep falling somewhere and coming back with a jerk." That somewhere is the third state, the theta. If you fall to the second, alpha, you will know where you had gone and there will be no jerk. Smoothly one can move from the first to the second, from the beta to the alpha, very smoothly, because the difference is only of activity and passivity -- you remain alert. But when you move from the second to the third, then the difference is very deep. Now you are moving, ordinarily, from awakeness to sleepiness. Then if you come back you will come with a jerk, and consciousness is lost -- that's why you don't know where you have been.

"There is no memory of where I have been." If you had just simply fallen asleep you would have the memory. If you were dreaming, you would have the memory of the dream. If you were nondreaming, you would have the memory that you fell asleep and there was no dream. Either, positively, you will remember a dream or, negatively, you will remember there was no dream and the sleep was deep; but you will remember if it is a sleep.

That's how in the morning you remember that in the night there were so many dreams, or on some day you say, "I slept very deeply; there were no dreams."

These are both memories -- one positive, one negative. If dream happens there will be a positive memory -- something was happening, certain activity going on.

If there is no dream you will have just a peaceful remembrance of nothing, that nothing happened. But this you will remember: that nothing happened and no dream crossed my mind and sleep was really deep, very deep, not a single ripple. But you will remember and you will say, "I was very blissful."

But if you fall not asleep but into the meditative state -- they are similar, almost similar -- than you will not be able to remember anything. Because when you fall into a meditative state, theta, or sometimes you can move into the fourth also, the delta, then there will be no memory at all because you are going somewhere which is not part of the mind, somewhere where memory does not function, somewhere off the track. You are not on the superhighway, you are moving in the forest of your unconscious being: uncharted, no maps, thinking doesn't function -- -no ideas can be applied to it. Then you will come back with a jerk as if you had been lost. You will come back with a jerk to the superhighway again, where milestones exist and everything is clean and the map exists -- and you can understand where you are.

You are not just falling asleep; otherwise you will know, because you know sleep. For many lives you have been sleeping; you are perfectly acquainted with the phenomenon. If you live sixty years, twenty years are passed in sleep. It is not an ordinary phenomenon. Sixty years' life, twenty years are passed in sleep: every day, one third of your time is sleep time. You know it; you know it well.

And this is not only for one life -- for millions of lives you have been sleeping, one third every life. In fact there is no other activity which takes so much time.

No other single activity takes so much time. You neither love for eight hours nor do you eat for eight hours nor do you meditate for eight hours. Sleep is the most significant thing. How can you be unaware of it? Maybe dimly aware, but you are aware: memory will function.

But you are falling off the track, where you have never been. That's why you come with a jerk. Something unknown touches your being. That's why you cannot decide "whether I am going deep or just asleep." Be happy. If you can decide, then it is sleep; if you can recognize, then it is sleep. If you cannot recognize, then something from the beyond is penetrating you and you are penetrating into the beyond. Be happy. Delight in it, and allow it. One day it becomes possible, when you go again and again and again into the unknown, then you become acquainted with the territory. Then there may be no common map, but you have your own private map of it. At least you know where you are going.

So the only thing to be done is: when you close your eyes be come more alert, because more alertness will be needed. Into the deeper darkness more light will be needed. Become alert, and as you start falling into somewhere -- the unknown -- try to keep alertness. By and by, one learns the knack of it. And then every night when you are falling asleep, again try it -- just to give it practice. When you start feeling drowsy, inside remain alert and go on seeing what is happening.

One day you will see: drowsiness has come, sleep has entered, and alertness is still there. That day is the most beautiful day of any life. When you can remain alert and move into deep sleep you have moved into the fourth, the delta. That is the deepest center of your being.

Of course one has to earn it, one has to learn it, one has to become capable of it. It does not happen, ordinarily. It is not an ordinary state of mind; it is a very extraordinary state of mind. That's why Krishna declared it five thousand years before, and for five thousand years there existed no scientific proof for it -- it appeared to be just a philosophical theory: "YA NISHA SARVA BHUTAYAM TASYAM JAGRATI SAMYAMI." After five thousand years, now, a few scientific proofs are arising. You can also move into it, and when it becomes a scientific proof of your own understanding it is a revelation.

Question 2

For that, Patanjali will have to be born as an American. Only then can he write the yoga of kissing. Such foolish things exist only in America, nowhere else: yoga of sex, yoga of kissing, yoga of anything -- cooking. But you will have to wait a little -- some fool is bound to.

Question 3

Don't be worried. Just be total, and you will never be extreme. Ordinarily, if you think about it, it appears that if you become total you will become extreme -- because you don't know what totality is. Totality always happens in the middle.

It is a phenomenon of the middle, because totality is balance. On the extreme it never happens; on the extreme you can never be total. Try to understand it.

You love someone: you can be extreme in love, but that will not be totality because love has another part to it, that is hate. So you can move to one extreme, that is love; it will be one extreme. Sometimes you can hate the same person. You can move to another extreme and you can hate completely -- or it appears to you that you are in complete hate -- but that too is part. The whole phenomenon is love-hate, together.

If you choose one you have chosen one extreme. My left hand and my right hand -- they both belong to me. If I choose the left I lean towards the left, if I choose the right I lean towards the right, and when I don't choose any I stand in the middle.

Then both hands belong to me, but I don't belong to them. If you choose hate you have chosen one part. If you choose love you have chosen another part.

And this is the trouble: if you choose hate, sooner or later you will fall in love. If you go on hating the enemy long enough you will fall in love. If you go on loving the friend long enough you will hate. Because one cannot remain on one extreme for long. That's why lovers fight and enemies are also deep down lovers. They cannot be without the enemy; they cling. Love in reverse -- but it is love.

What happens when one is total? Love and hate, both, are there. And when love and hate both are there, they cancel each other, and a different phenomenon arises that Buddha has called compassion. Compassion has no opposite to it. Or, you can say, "Only when there is no hate part, love becomes perfect"; but then love is in the middle. Whatsoever you want to call it is not the point, but a deep balance happens. Opposites cancel each other; they are of the same weight. They cancel each other and you remain in balance. Balance is totality. Then the whole of you is involved in it.

When a Buddha has compassion nothing is left behind. He moves totally in it.

When a Jesus loves he moves totally in it. When you love, a part of you is getting ready to hate. When you hate, a part of you is getting ready to love. You are divided -- a divided personality always moves to the extremes. Totality belongs to an undivided mind, nonsplit: one stands erect, in the middle, so balanced -- not leaning to this or that. In that moment of neither this nor that, one attains to totality.

The Upanishads have a particular word for it. They call it "NETI-NETI." They say "neither this nor that" -- don't choose between the opposites. Let the opposites come together and become complementary. Let them dissolve into each other. Be choiceless. That's why Krishnamurti goes on emphasizing one word continuously -- "choiceless awareness" -- because the moment you choose you have chosen the extreme.

All choice is of the extreme. You choose something against something. Whenever you say, "This is beautiful," you have already condemned something as ugly.

Otherwise how can you say this is beautiful? In the assertion, in the statement, that this is beautiful, is hidden the statement: "Something is ugly, condemned."

The moment you say, "This man is a saint," you have condemned somebody as a sinner.

Saints will disappear if sinners disappear. How can there be saints if there are no sinners? Sinners are needed for saints to be. Sinners will also disappear if saints are no longer there. Who will call them sinners? How will you judge that somebody is a sinner? In a perfect humanity there will be no saint, no sinner, because the whole thing will balance deeply. Sinners and saints are opposites to each other; they exist together.

Sometimes, while I was travelling in India, in many places many people asked me one question again and again. The question seems to be very pertinent and relevant. They have asked me, "Why is it so, that in India there have been so many saints, and yet the country is so immoral?" I have told them it is natural.

When a country produces so many saints it has to produce the same number of sinners; otherwise the balance will be lost. When the country produces all the teerthankeras, twentyfour; all the avataras, twenty four; all the Buddhas, twentyfour; then where will the sinners go? And how can a Buddha exist if all the sinners are not here?

A Buddha exists in an ocean of sinners; there is no other way. For one Buddha to exist millions of sinners are needed. In fact, because of those sinners he looks so enlightened: contrast. Against a blackboard you write with white chalk: it looks so white, more white than white -- whiter than white. Write on a white wall with the white chalk -- nothing appears. When the humanity will really be perfect, balanced, there will be no Buddha: it will be writing on a white wall with white chalk. A very dark humanity is needed. So, if you ask me, I hope for a world where there will be no need for a Buddha... things will be so balanced.

That's what Lao Tzu says again and again, "There was a time in the past there were no saints -- because there were no sinners." There was a time in the past when things were so natural and so balanced that there was not even a concept of what is wrong and what is right. Lao Tzu says, "Bring the concept of right, and wrong enters immediately." Opposites are together. They come together; they go together. They are aspects of the same coin, two aspects of the same thing.

If you choose you choose the extreme. Balance cannot be chosen. You have to become choiceless; then there is balance, neither this nor that -- neti-neti.

Suddenly you balance in the middle, and all the glory of existence becomes yours. You are fulfilled.

The question seems to be meaningful, but is not: "How can one be total yet not extreme in all that one experiences?" If you are total then you will not be extreme; if you are extreme you will not be total. Try to be total and balanced, and extremes will disappear by themselves. They exist with your support.

Because you choose, that's why they exist.

Don't choose. Don't say this is good and don't say that is bad. Remain alert, that's all. Don't say this is a saint and that is a sinner. Remain alert, that's all -- and accept the total. The sinner exists, the saint exists: the total accepts both. You also accept both. With no condemnation of the sinner, with no appreciation of the saint, you become choiceless. In that choicelessness you will be balanced, and you will be total.

Question 4

What else can I do?

Question 5

Krishnamurti is right. Very difficult to understand, but he is right. All experiences are through chemical change -- all, without any exception. Whether you take LSD or you fast, in both the ways body goes through chemical change.

Whether you take marijuana or you do a certain pranayam, a breathing exercise, in both the ways body goes through chemical change. Try to understand it.

When you fast what happens? Your body loses a few chemicals because they have to be supplied every day by the food. If you don't supply those chemicals, the body loses those chemicals. Then the ordinary balance of the chemicals is lost; and because fasting creates an imbalance you can start feeling a few things.

If you fast long enough you will have hallucinations. If you fast for twenty-one days or more you will become incapable of judging whether what you are seeing is real or unreal, because for it a particular chemical is needed and that is lost.

Ordinarily, if suddenly Krishna meets you on the road, the first idea to arise will be that you must be seeing some hallucination, some illusion, some dream. You will rub your eyes and you will look around, or you will ask somebody else, "Come here. Please, see. Can you see somebody standing just in front of me, Krishna-like?" But if you fast for twenty-one days, the distinction between reality and dream is lost. Then if Krishna is standing, you believe that he is there.

Have you watched small children? They cannot make a distinction between reality and dream. In the night they dreamed about a toy, and in the morning they are weeping and crying -- "Where has the toy gone?" That particular chemical which helps you to judge has still to be created, only then will the child be able to make the distinction between real and unreal.

When you take alcohol that chemical is destroyed.

Mulla Nasrudin was teaching his son. Sitting in a pub, he was telling him when to stop. So he said, "Look. Look in that corner. When you start seeing four people instead of two, know well this is the time to stop drinking and go home."

But the son said, "Dad, there are not two people -- only one is sitting!" The dad is already drunk.

When you take alcohol what happens? Some chemical change. When you take LSD what happens? -- or marijuana or other things? Some chemical change, and you start seeing things which you had never seen. You start feeling things; you become very sensitive.

And that is the trouble: you cannot persuade an alcoholic to drop his drinks, because the real reality seems so flat, boring. Once he has seen the reality through his chemicals, through chemical changes.... The trees were more green and the flowers had more fragrance because he could project, he could create an illusory world: now you tell him, "Stop. Your children are suffering, your wife is suffering, your job is going to the dogs -- stop!" but he cannot stop, because he had a glimpse of an unreal world, but beautiful. Now if he stops, the world seems to be too rough, ordinary. The trees don't look so green and the flowers don't smell so beautiful; even the wife -- for whom to save you are teaching him - - looks very ordinary, dead, a routine affair. When he is under the influence of the drug his own wife becomes a Cleopatra, the most beautiful woman in the world. He lives a dream life.

All experiences are chemical -- without any exception. When you breathe very much you create very much oxygen inside the body; the quantity of nitrogen falls. More oxygen changes inner chemicals. You start feeling things which you never felt. If you whirl around as in dervish dances, fast spin, the body changes; the chemicals change through spinning. You feel dizzy; a new world opens. All experiences are chemical.

When you are hungry the world looks different. When you are satisfied, satiated, the world looks different. A poor man has a different world, and a rich man has a different world. Their chemicals differ. An intelligent man has a different world, and a stupid man has a different world. Their chemicals differ. A woman has a different world; a man has a different world. Their chemicals differ.

When one becomes sexually mature, at the age of fourteen or fifteen, a different world arises because new chemicals are flowing in the bloodstream. For a child of seven, if you talk about sex and sexual orgasm, he will think you are foolish -- "What nonsense are you talking?" -- because those chemicals are not flowing, those hormones are not in the bloodstream. But at the moment of the age of fourteen, fifteen, the eyes are full of new chemicals -- an ordinary woman suddenly is transformed.

Mulla Nasrudin used to go to the hills on holidays. Sometimes he would go for fifteen days and would be back by the tenth. The boss asked him, "What is the matter? You asked for fifteen days' leave, and you are back five days before?"

And sometimes he would ask for two weeks' leave and he would come after four weeks. "So what is the matter?" the boss asked.

The Mulla said, "There is a certain mathematics in it. In the hills I have a bungalow, and the bungalow is kept by an old, very ugly woman. So this is my criterion: when I start seeing that ugly woman as a beautiful woman, I run away.

So sometimes it happens after eight days, sometimes ten days.... She is ugly and horrible. You cannot think that she can be beautiful. But when I start thinking about her and she starts coming into my dreams and I feel that she is beautiful, then I know that now this is the time to go back home; otherwise there is danger.

So nobody knows. If I am healthy enough then it comes sooner, within seven days. If I am not so healthy then it takes two weeks. If I am very weak it takes three weeks. It depends on chemicals."

All experiences are chemical -- but one distinction has to be made. There are two ways. One is to put the chemicals in -- inject, smoke, or throw in the body. They come from the outside; they are intruders. That's what all drug people are doing around the world. The other way is to change the body by fasting, breathing....

That's what all the yogis have been doing in the East. They belong to the same path; the difference is very little. The difference is that drug people take drugs from the outside, they intrude in the biochemistry of the body, and the yogis try to change the balance of their own body, not to intrude from the outside. But as far as I am concerned, both are the same.

But if you have any urge to experience, I will tell you to choose the path of the yogis, because that way you will not be dependent, you will be more independent. And that way you will never become an addict, and that way your body will retain its purity, its organic unity. And that way, at least, you will not be an offense to the law -- no police raid possible. And that way you can go beyond easily. Hmm?... that is the most important thing.

If you take chemicals from the outside into the body, you will remain with them.

It will be difficult, more and more difficult every day to go beyond. In fact you will become more and more dependent, so dependent that you will lose all life, all charm of life, and the drug experience alone will become your whole life, the whole center of it.

If you move through yoga, through the inner changes in the chemistry of the body, you will never be dependent, and you will be able to go beyond. Because the whole point of religion is to go beyond experiences. Whether you experience beautiful colors -- rainbow all around through LSD -- or you experience heaven through yoga exercises, basically there is no difference. In fact until you go beyond all experiences, all objective experiences, until you come to the point where only the witness remains and no experience to be experienced, only the experiencer remains, you have not touched the boundary of religion.

Krishnamurti is right. But the people who are listening to him are misunderstanding him. Thinking that all experiences are futile, they have remained ordinary; they have not made any effort. I know all experiences are futile, finally one has to Leave them, but before you can leave them you will have to have them. They are like the staircase: it has to be left behind, hut one has to go upwards. One can leave it only when one has crossed it. All experiences are childish, but one has to go through them to become mature.

The real religious experience is not an experience at all. Religious experience is not experience: it is to come to the experiencer where everything known/unknown, knowable/ unknowable, disappears. Only the witnessing self remains, only a pure consciousness, with no experience to contaminate it -- you don't see Jesus, you don't see Buddha, you don't see Krishna standing there.

That's why the Zen Masters say, "If you meet the Buddha on the path, kill him immediately." Followers of Buddha say, "If you meet Buddha on the path, kill him immediately." A great teaching. Hmm?... because Buddha is so beautiful you can be allured to the dream, and then you can go on with closed eyes seeing Buddha or Krishna playing on the flute. You may be seeing a very religious dream, but it is still a dream, not reality.

The reality is your consciousness. Everything else has to be transcended. If you can remember that, then one has to pass through all experiences, but one has to pass through.

If you are after experiences too much, as everyone is -- -- that is part of the growth -- it is better to choose yoga exercises than drugs. They are more subtle, yoga exercises, more refined. You must be aware of the fact that India has tried with all the drugs. America is just a newcomer in that world. From somarasa in the Rig-vedas to ganja, India has tried everything and came to understand that this is just wasting time. Then India tried yoga exercises. Then, many times, persons like Buddha, Mahavir, reached a stage where they found that even yoga exercises are useless; they have to be dropped.

Krishnamurti is not saying something new. It is the experience of all the Buddhas. But, remember, an experience can become an experience to you only when you attain to it. Nobody can give it to you; it cannot be borrowed. If you are still childish and you feel that you need some experiences, it is better to have them through yoga exercises. Finally, that too has to be dropped.

But if you choose between LSD and pranayam, it is better to choose pranayam.

You will be less dependent and you will be more capable of transcending, because the awareness will not be lost in it. In LSD the awareness will be lost completely.

Always choose a higher thing. Whenever there is a possibility, and you want to choose, choose a higher thing. A moment will come when you will not like to choose anything... then choicelessness.

Question 6

Yes, self-consciousness is a disease, and self-awareness is health. So what is the difference, because the words seem to mean the same thing? The words may mean the same thing, but when I use them or Patanjali uses them, we don't mean the same thing.

In self-consciousness the emphasis is on the self. In self-awareness the emphasis is on the awareness. You can use the same word, self-consciousness, for both. If the emphasis is on the self it is a disease. If the emphasis is on the consciousness it is health. Very subtle, but a very great difference.

Self-consciousness is disease because you are continuously conscious about the self -- how people are feeling about me, how they are judging me, what is their opinion: whether they like me or not, they accept me or reject me, they love me or not. Always the "me," the "I," the ego remains the center. This is a disease. Ego is the greatest disease there is.

And if you change the focus, emphasis -- -from self the focus goes to consciousness: now you are not worried "whether people reject me or accept me."

What their opinion is, that doesn't matter. Now you want to be aware in every situation. Whether they reject or they accept, whether they love or hate, whether they call you a saint or a sinner, that doesn't matter. What they say, what their opinion is, that is their business and their problem to decide for themselves. You are simply trying to be aware in every situation.

Somebody comes, bows down to you, he believes you are a saint: you don't bother about what he says, what he believes. You simply remain alert, you remain aware, so that he cannot drag you into unawareness, that's all. And somebody comes and insults you and throws an old shoe at you: you don't

bother about what he is doing. You simply try to be alert, so that you remain untouched -- he cannot drag you.

In appreciation or condemnation, in failure or success, you remain the same.

Through your awareness you attain to a tranquility which cannot be disturbed in either way. You become free of people's opinions.

That's the difference between a religious person and a political person. A political person is self-conscious -- emphasis on self, always worried about the opinion of the people. He depends on people's opinions, their votes. Finally, they are the masters and deciders. A religious man is a master of his ownself; nobody can decide for him. He does not depend on your votes or on your opinions. If you come to him, okay. If you don't come to him, that too is okay. It creates no problem. He is himself.

Now, I would like to say a very paradoxical thing to you -- paradoxical it appears, it is a simple truth: People who are self-conscious -- emphasis on the self -- have no self. That's why they are so self-conscious: afraid -- anybody can take their self away. They don't have their self. They are not masters. Their self is borrowed, borrowed from you. Somebody smiles: their self is given support.

Somebody insults: a prop has been taken away; their structure shakes. Somebody is angry: they are afraid. If everybody gets angry, where will they be, who will they be? Their identity is broken. If everybody smiles and says, "You are great," they are great.

People who are self-conscious, the political people.... And when I say political persons I don't mean only those who are really in politics: all those who in any way are dependent on others are political. They don't have any self; inside is empty. They are always afraid of their emptiness. Anybody can throw them to their emptiness -- anybody! Even a barking dog can throw them to their emptiness.

A man who is religious, self-conscious -- emphasis on consciousness -- has a self, an authentic self. You cannot take that self away from him. You cannot give it to him; you cannot take it from him. He has attained to it. If the whole world goes against him, his self will be with him. If the whole world follows him, his self will not be in any way added to, increased, no. He has really some authentic reality -- a center exists in him.

The political man has no center. He tries to create a false center. He borrows something from you, something from somebody else, something from somebody else.... That's how he manages. A false identity, a composition from many people's opinions: that is his identity. If people forget about him he will be lost, he will be nowhere; in fact, he will be nobody.

Do you see? A person is a president: suddenly he becomes somebody. Then he is no longer a president: then he is nobody. Then all the newspapers forget about him. They will remember only when he will die -- that too in a small corner. They will remember him as an ex-president, not as a person -- as an ex-post-holder.

Have you not seen this happen with Radhakrishnan? Can't you see this happening with V.V. Giri? Where is Giri? What happened? Simply a man disappears. When you are on the post, you are on all the front pages of the newspapers. You are not important -- the post.

Hence, all those who are poor deep inside are always in search of a post, in search of people's votes, opinions. That is the way they attain to a soul -- a false soul, of course.

Psychologists have reached to a very deep core of the problem. They say people who try to become superior are suffering from an inferiority complex, and people who are really superior -- they don't bother a bit. They are so superior that they are not even aware that they are superior. Only an inferior person can be aware that he is superior -- and he is very touchy about it. If you give him even a hint that "you are not so great as you think," he will be angry. Only a superior man can stand at the back as the last man. All inferiors are rushing towards the front, because if they stand at the back they are nobodies. They have to stand in the front. They have to be in the capital. They have to be with great money. They have to move in a big car. They have to be this and that. People who are inferior always try to prove their superiority by their possessions.

Let me summarize it: people who don't have a being try to gain a being through having things -- posts, names, fame.

Even sometimes it happens: one man in America killed seven persons. All those seven persons were unknown to him. He was asked in the court, "Why?" He said, "I could not become famous, so I thought at least I can become notorious, but I must be somebody. And I am happy that my photo is on the front pages as a murderer. Now you can do whatsoever you want to do. I have a feeling, now, that I am somebody. And the court is worried, the government is worried, and the people are worried, and the newspapers talking about me -- I can visualize in every hotel, restaurant, everywhere, people will be talking about me. At least for one day I have become the famous, the known."

All politicians are murderers. You can't see because you are also a politician deep inside. Just now, Mujibur Rahman has been killed. Just a few days before, he was the father of the nation. And to become the father of the nation he committed so much nuisance. He killed many -- or, he created the situation in which many were killed. Now he is killed by his own colleagues. His whole cabinet is again in power, and the people who had designed to kill him -- now they have become the president and the prime minister and minister. And they were all his colleagues, and nobody is saying anything against them. Nobody is saying anything against them. The world seems to be simply unbelievable. Now they are great people. And somebody in their own cabinet may be trying to kill Mushtaque Ahmed.

All politicians are murderers, because they are not worried about you. They are worried about their feeling: they should be somebody. If murder can give them that feeling, then okay. If violence can give them that feeling, then it is okay.

I was reading a few days before. I couldn't believe it, but it is a fact. I was reading a book about Lenin. Somebody invited him to listen to Beethoven's symphonies.

He said no, and he said no very emphatically. In fact he became almost aggressive in saying no. The man who had invited him couldn't believe why he was so angry. He said, "But why? Beethoven's symphonies are one of the greatest creations in the world." Lenin said, "Maybe, but all good music is against revolution because it gives you such deep contentment, it pacifies you. I am against all music."

If great music spreads in the world, revolutions will disappear. The logic is relevant. Lenin is saying something true about all politicians. They will not like great music in the world, they will not like great poetry in the world, they will not like great meditators in the world, they will not like people in ecstasy, euphoria, no -- because then what will happen to revolutions? What will happen to wars? What will happen to all sorts of foolishnesses that go on in the world?

People need to remain always in fever; only then they help politicians. If people are satisfied, content, happy, who bothers about capitals? People will forget all about them. They will dance and they will listen to music and they will meditate.

Why should they bother about President Ford and this and that? There is nothing to it. But people, when they are not satisfied, not relaxed, people who don't have their selfs: they go on supporting other selfs because that is the only way they can get others' support for their own selfs.

Remember this: self-consciousness -- emphasis on self -- is deep disease, disease in depth. One should get rid of it. Self-consciousness -- emphasis on consciousness -- is one of the most holy things in the world, because it belongs to healthy people, those who have attained to their center. They are conscious, aware. They are not empty; they are fulfilled.

Question 7

Watching need not be a seeing, it can be a feeling. In fact it has to be a feeling because how can you see your breath? You feel it, the touch of it. When the breath moves through the passage, you feel the touch of it.

The whole thing is not a question of seeing. The thing is to be alert that it is going in, that it has reached to the very innermost core of your being, that now it has stopped; that now it is coming back. The ebb and the tide: now it has gone out, moved completely out, stopped; then again moving back. The whole circle of it -- coming in, going out, coming in, going out -- one has to be aware. If you feel it, that is awareness -- but one should not miss feeling it. If you can do it every day for one hour, your whole life will be changed.

And remember, if you don't change your breathing there is no chemical change happening in you. That's the difference between Patanjali and Buddha.

Patanjali's techniques will change your chemistry; Buddha's technique will not touch your chemistry at all. Normal breathing -- as it is: you simply watch, feel, see. Don't let it go in and out without awareness, that's all. Don't change it. Let it be as it is. Just add one thing: that you remain a witness to it.

Even if you can do it for one hour, your whole life will be transfigured -- and without any chemical change. You will simply become a transcendental experience, a transcendental consciousness. You will not see Buddhas, you will become a Buddha. And that's the point to be remembered: seeing Buddhas does not matter... unless you become a Buddha.

Question 8

No, but it has to be cool -- not cold, but cool. And the difference is vast. When something is cold you are indifferently looking at it, not caring, indifferent. A cool phenomenon is different: you care, you are not indifferent. But you are not attached, also. You are not obsessed; you are not feverish about it. You are not excited. If you can avoid two extremes -- indifference and excitement -- there will be coolness, a calm, cool, collected feeling.

Witnessing need not be cold. In fact if it is cold it is no longer witnessing; you have become indifferent. You are not watching. And you know well either you can be cold or you can be hot. Coolness exists just in the middle. Coolness is neither hot nor cold; it is just the midpoint between the two. You are interested but not excited: you are watching with care, not with indifference, but you are not affected.

Difficult... because you know two feelings -- cold and hot. You don't know the third feeling at all because you move from one extreme to another. Either you hate somebody or you love. Compassion: you don't know what it is. Compassion is just a word, seems to be meaningless. It is a cool word.

If you come to a Buddha he will welcome you, but it will not be a warm welcome -- it will not be cold, also. It will be a cool welcome. He will welcome you with his whole heart, but he will not be excited. It is not that if you were not there he would have been sad because of your absence, no. He would have been as happy as ever. If you are there he is happy; if you are not there he is happy. His happiness is unaltered, that's why it is cool.

When your friend comes to see you, you are excited -- -you become hot. And remember, you cannot remain hot for long, because heat is tiring. Soon you start thinking, "When will this man leave?" First, you become hot; then you become cold. First, you become happy because a friend has come; and then you become happy when he has left. A Buddha just remains happy, whether a friend comes or not does not matter. His happiness remains unaltered. He is cool.

And to understand a cool love is really a great experience -- difficult, because your mind will interpret the cool love as cold. You don't know the cool term; you know only cold. You will see that Buddha is cold. He is not. All enlightened

people are cool. Cool, because you cannot disturb them -- either way; you cannot make them more happy; you cannot make them unhappy. They are cool because they are centered.

Question 9

I am giving it to you, but you don't listen. It is not a question that I am not giving it to you. I am giving you absolute poison. It will kill you instantaneously, but you don't listen to me.

You go on thinking that something is wrong, you go on thinking that you are wrong, and sometimes, you even desire, "How to destroy this state of affairs?

How to go beyond it?" but you have invested in it too much. You think, "How to go beyond it?" but you don't want to go beyond.

Poison I can give you. The whole of what I am giving you is nothing but an art of dying. But I cannot force the poison on you; otherwise the court will see to it -- -I will be in trouble. I can simply offer you; then you have to take it. And there you miss.

You want it to be forced on you. You want it to be spoon-fed. And this death cannot be forced by anybody else. The death I am talking about has to be a voluntary death. It has to be a willing death. It has to be with your total heart. I cannot force on you. If you are ready it will happen; if you are not ready it will not happen.

On my part I am always ready. If you are ready to die I am ready to help you.

But you are not ready to die. Deep down you go on thinking that even after death you will survive.

You meditate, but you meditate in such a way so that you call survive it also: you use it as a technique. Your basic reality is not touched; you are always careful about it. But if you do it as a death -- meditation as death -- then you cannot survive it. Somebody else will come out of it, not you. You will be gone. A new being will come out of you -- fresh, young, virgin. You will not even be able to recognize it. There will be a discontinuity: you dropped completely, something new popped up -- and they both are not related to each other.

This is very difficult to understand. That new being is hidden behind you, but the shell that is covering you is too hard. You are like a seed: deep inside all is hidden, the whole tree -- the flowers and fruits and all -- but the shell is very hard. The shell is not ready to die. If the shell dies the tree will be born. And the tree is something absolutely different from the shell; it has nothing to do with it.

The shell is just a protection -- but the protection has become the whole.

Your ego is just like a shell. If the ego dies you will grow -- you will become a god! With the ego you will remain a sufferer. With no ego you will become

absolutely blissful. But you don't know about it; the shell has never heard about it. And you go on listening to me through the shell. That's why you go on asking me, "Give us something to die," but you don't want it.

I am giving something to die, every moment. In fact I am not giving anything else: the whole science of religion is the science of death. It is to teach you how to die perfectly, so nothing is left. The whole shell disappears in the earth, dissolves, and the tree sprouts.

But, you think that somebody will do it for you? That is not possible. You have to commit suicide; you cannot be murdered. Remember that. The word "suicide" is very beautiful. I'm not talking about committing a suicide in the body; I am talking about committing a suicide in the mind, in the ego. Become a no-mind, a no-ego, and the whole existence becomes possible. You are carrying it for millions of lives. It is just there within you. It is already there, just a right soil and the shell disappearing... and the tree will be there in all its glory and beauty.

Question 10

There is nobody to relate to them. They come out of the blue -- nobody is managing. I am not there to manage them. You ask a question and out of the blue comes the response. They are not my words. The question is yours; the answer is not mine. The question comes from your mind; the answer is not coming from any mind. The mind is being used to deliver it, but it is not coming from there.

The medium is not the source.